1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates in general to an electronic apparatus and a power management method thereof, and more particularly to a portable electronic apparatus and a power management method thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
Along with the success in scaling down the sizes of chips and parts, most portable electronic devices such as mobile phone, personal digital assistant, digital camera, and MP3 player (MPEG-3 player) are equipped with diversified functions to satisfy users' increasing needs. Apart from hardware design, a portable electronic device is further equipped with programmable functions to execute various application programs and provide diversified functions according to users' needs.
What is emphasized in a portable electronic device, a mobile phone for instance, is power saving or low power-consumption so as to prolong the standby time. Along with users' increasing needs, a portable electronic device must have convenient and attractive functions to attract the users particularly in the design of man-machine-interface (MMI). However, increasingly various functions will increase the complexity of man-machine-interface, and the processor of the portable electronic device will consume more power due to increased workload.
Therefore, most portable electronic devices are equipped with power management function to save power. Take a mobile phone for example. The power management function of the mobile phone will turn off the backlight source of the screen to save power when the mobile phone is in a standby state. Currently, most portable electronic devices, a mobile phone for instance, is equipped with a color liquid crystal display, which is more power consuming than a mono-color liquid crystal display. Moreover, in order to arouse the user's interest, the mobile phone is even equipped with animation playing function, which further increases power consumption. The conventional power management method will turn off the backlight source of the screen during the standby period. The conventional mobile phone power management method can only save power by controlling the switching off of the hardware, and is unable to reduce power consumption regarding animation playing. Moreover, the animation will be played again when the user of the mobile phone touches the input interface for viewing the displaying of the display screen. Furthermore, when the portable electronic device turns on the backlight and returns to the standby state, the displaying delay of the following frame sometimes even makes the user feel that the mobile phone is hung. Such frame displaying delay brings inconvenience to the user and makes the user feel the mobile phone is unavailable. A negative evaluation of the mobile phone will thus be generated.
Considering the current trend for function diversification of portable electronic devices, new products will be continuously developed to enhance the visual effect of the man-machine-interface, particularly the animation playing function. Such enhancement of visual effect, which increases the power consumption of portable electronic device, will relatively reduce the duration of standby time. Moreover, the frame displaying delay, which occurs when the portable electronic device turns on the backlight and returns to the standby state, makes the user feel inconvenient and even bear a negative evaluation of the portable electronic device. Consequently, negative impact is imposed on the competitive capacity of the product.
Therefore, the designer of portable electronic device must provide a solution to resolve the above problems.